The first sentence is dropping a suitcase somewhere. The second sentence is full of shit—there’s a lot of retail in my heart. You are showering. I am sitting where I normally sit. We are somewhere a suitcase doesn’t have a chance. The lights are off because this poem is magic: we are the only ones in this space & no one can ever take our everything away from us.

There is a quiet here: we look at each other through opposite rooms, the dishwasher is full of almost dry individuals, the city is present because it’s been a part of us since we met & it’s part of the rest of our lives. We keep wanting. We keep buying. We keep asking. We keep living—of course we do.

They light up to sing you shit you’ve never heard of. They light up when you go to the bathroom alone at the hour you’ll never want to mention. They light up when they do, because they are here as much as you are. They light up, they light up, they light up—they light up some more, in case you needed, need, or will need: that.

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Parker Tettleton is a vegan Leo living in Portland, Oregon. He is the author of This Is A City (Ravenna Press, 2020), Please Quiet (Ravenna Press, 2018), Ours Mine Yours (Pitymilk Press, 2014), Greens (Thunderclap Press, 2012), & Same Opposite (Thunderclap Press, 2012). More work & information is here.